Attorney General Candidate, State Senator Campaign on Island

As campaign season begins in earnest for the 2014 elections, faces new and familiar are making stops on the Vineyard.

On Friday, incumbent state Sen. Dan Wolf, who is seeking a third term representing the Cape and Islands, made a joint campaign appearance with Maura Healey, a first-time candidate who is running for attorney general. The candidates spoke at the Field Gallery to a crowd of about 60 people.

“There’s such a comparable philosophy that both of these candidates share,” said Megan Ottens-Sargent, who worked with Senator Wolf during his brief gubernatorial campaign. Senator Wolf, who is the founder of Cape Air, stepped out of that race because of conflict of interest complications. Ms. Ottens-Sargent and a group of Vineyarders, including Paddy Moore and Richard Knabel, helped arrange the joint appearance.

Ms. Healey has worked in the attorney general’s office for the past seven years as chief of the civil rights division. She took the position, she said, in order to have the “opportunity to fight for fairness and justice, and opportunity under the law,” taking a 70 per cent pay cut as she left her former job at a large law firm. During her tenure Ms. Healey spearheaded the first successful state challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and filed the first civil rights lawsuit in the country against subprime mortgage lenders. At the Field Gallery, she emphasized the need for the attorney general to “give voice to the vulnerable,” particularly the elderly, the poor and the immigrant community.

Both Ms. Healey and Senator Wolf said they supported Gov. Deval Patrick’s proposal to bring immigrant children to Massachusetts.

After the event Ms. Healey said that her visit to the Vineyard was part of an overall grassroots campaign, noting the importance of getting out and meeting voters face-to-face.

Ms. Healey is running against former state Sen. Warren Tolman, who represented Middlesex and Suffolk County in the Democratic primary on Sept. 9.

Senator Wolf spoke out against the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station and urged attendees not to lose sight of local elections in the wake of the 2016 national contest, which people are “already gearing up for.” He said that candidates like Ms. Healey represented a new generation in the Democratic party.

“We need people who are not ‘business as usual,’” he said. “We need people who are standing for more than that.”

Ms. Healey said that because it was her first time campaigning she had “no ties or interests.”

“I am not beholden to anyone except the people of this state,” she said to a round of applause.